Formation | 1999 |
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Type | Nonprofit (IRC § 501(c)(3)) [1] |
52-2166327 | |
Location |
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Coordinates | 38°48′20″N77°03′37″W / 38.8056°N 77.0603°W |
Services | Donor-advised fund |
CEO | Lawson Bader [2] |
| |
Affiliations | Donors Capital Fund |
Revenue | $323 million [4] (2022) |
Expenses | $248 million [4] (2022) |
Endowment | $1.39 billion |
Website | donorstrust |
This article is part of a series on |
Conservatism in the United States |
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DonorsTrust is an American nonprofit donor-advised fund. It was founded in 1999 with the goal of "safeguarding the intent of libertarian and conservative donors". [5] As a donor advised fund, DonorsTrust is not legally required to disclose the identity of its donors, and most of its donors remain anonymous. [6] [7] It distributes funds to various conservative and libertarian organizations, and has been characterized as the "dark money ATM" of the political right. [6] [8] [9] : 1
It is affiliated with Donors Capital Fund, another donor-advised fund. In September 2015, Lawson Bader was announced as the new president of both DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund. Bader was formerly president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Vice President at the Mercatus Center. [2]
DonorsTrust is a 501(c)(3) organization. [1] As a public charity and a donor-advised fund, DonorsTrust offers clients a variety of tax advantages compared to a private foundation. [10]
DonorsTrust accepts donations from charitable foundations and individuals. [11] Grants from DonorsTrust are based on the preferences of the original contributor, and the organization assures clients that their contributions will never be used to support politically liberal causes. [12] [13] As a donor advised fund, DonorsTrust can offer anonymity to individual donors, with respect to their donations to DonorsTrust, as well as with respect to an individual donor's ultimate grantee. [12] [14] [15] [16]
As a donor advised fund and public charity, DonorsTrust accepts cash or assets from donors, and in turn creates a separate account for the donor, who may recommend disbursements from the fund to other public charities. [15] DonorsTrust requires an initial deposit of $10,000 or more. [17] [18] DonorsTrust is associated with Donors Capital Fund. DonorsTrust refers clients to Donors Capital Fund if the client plans to maintain a balance of $1 million or more. [19] [20] DonorsTrust president Lawson Bader said the goal of the organization is to "safeguard the intent of libertarian and conservative donors," ensuring that funds are used only to promote "liberty through limited government, responsibility, and free enterprise". [5]
DonorsTrust was established in 1999 by Whitney Lynn Ball. [21] According to DonorsTrust, the organization was founded by a group of donors and nonprofit executives who were "actively engaged in supporting and promoting a free society as understood in America's founding documents." [13] A major selling point to donors is that even after their death, their money will continue to fund conservative/libertarian goals, and not change based on the attitudes of their heirs or trustees as a family foundation might. [6] : 1
In early 2013, DonorsTrust was the subject of reports by The Independent , [22] The Guardian , [11] [12] [23] Mother Jones , [18] [24] and the Center for Public Integrity. [10] Mother Jones described DonorsTrust as having funded a conservative public policy agenda in the areas of labor unions, climate science, public schools, and economic regulations. [18]
In January 2021, CNBC reported that in 2019, DonorsTrust had given millions of dollars to conservative organizations that went on to push claims of election fraud in the 2020 election. [25]
As of 2013, DonorsTrust had 193 contributors, mostly individuals, and some foundations. [10]
The Charles G. Koch Foundation contributed millions to DonorsTrust since the mid-2000s. [22] [26] [27] Two Koch brothers, Charles and David Koch, were the top contributors to DonorsTrust in 2011, according to an analysis by the Columbia Journalism Review . [28] In 2010, DonorsTrust received a US$2 million grant from the Donors Capital Fund. [14]
DonorsTrust account holders have included the John M. Olin Foundation, the Castle Rock Foundation, the Searle Freedom Trust, and the Bradley Foundation. [10] [29] The Bradley family contributed $650,000 between 2001 and 2010. [18] The DeVos family foundation contributed $1 million in 2009 and $1.5 million in 2010 to Donors Trust. [18]
Robert Mercer and Rebekah Mercer contributed nearly $20 million through DonorsTrust in 2020. [30]
From its founding in 1999 through 2013, DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund distributed nearly $400 million, and through 2015 $740 million, to various nonprofit organizations, including numerous conservative and libertarian causes. [10] [31] [32] DonorsTrust requires that recipients are registered with the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) public charity. Whitney Ball, the former president of the Trust, told The Guardian in 2013 that it has about 1,600 grantees. [33] In 2014, Ball said that 70 to 75 percent of grants go to public policy organizations, with the rest going to more conventional charities such as social service and educational organizations. [34]
In 2010, the Americans for Prosperity Foundation [35] received a DonorsTrust grant of $7 million, nearly half of the Foundation's revenue that year. [10] Other DonorsTrust recipients have included The Heritage Foundation, Americans for Tax Reform, the National Rifle Association Freedom Action Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Federalist Society, the FreedomWorks Foundation, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, and the Center for Class Action Fairness. [18] [24] [36]
DonorsTrust paid the legal fees of the Project on Fair Representation, a Washington, D.C.–based legal defense fund that assembled the plaintiff's legal team in Fisher v. University of Texas , a 2013 United States Supreme Court case concerning affirmative action college admissions policies. [37] In 2011, the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, an online conservative news organization, received $6.3 million in DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund grants, 95 percent of the center's revenue that year. [38] [39]
Other DonorsTrust recipients have included the Foundation for Jewish Camp, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the James Randi Educational Foundation, the Marijuana Policy Project, [34] [40] [41] , PragerU. [42]
DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund distributed nearly $120 million to 102 think tanks and action groups skeptical of the science behind climate change between 2002 and 2010. [12] According to a 2013 analysis by Drexel University environmental sociologist Robert Brulle, between 2003 and 2010, DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund combined were the largest funders of organizations opposed to restrictions on carbon emissions. [18] [43] By 2009, approximately one-quarter of the funding of what Brulle calls the "climate change counter-movement" came from grants via DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund. [19]
As of 2010, DonorsTrust grants to conservative and libertarian organizations active in climate change issues included more than $17 million to the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank; $13.5 million to the Heartland Institute, a public policy think tank; and $11 million to Americans for Prosperity, a political advocacy group. [23] In 2011, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), a conservative Washington, D.C.–based non-profit organization, received $1.2 million from Donors Trust, 40 percent of CFACT's revenue in that year. [14] Climate change writer Wei-Hock "Willie" Soon received hundreds of thousands of dollars from DonorsTrust. [44] [45] In 2015, The Guardian reported that Donors Trust gave $4.3 million to the Competitive Enterprise Institute over three years. [46]
Between 2008 and 2013, DonorsTrust granted $10 million to the State Policy Network (SPN), a national network of conservative and libertarian think tanks focused on state-level policy. SPN used the grants to incubate new think tanks in Arkansas, Rhode Island and Florida. DonorsTrust also issued grants to SPN's affiliates at the state level during the same period. The American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonprofit organization of conservative state legislators and private sector representatives that drafts and shares model state-level legislation, is a DonorsTrust recipient. [10]
The organization donated $1.7 million to Project Veritas, a watchdog group run by conservative activist James O'Keefe, which uses undercover videos to demonstrate the bias in mainstream media organizations and liberal groups. [47] DonorsTrust's relationship with Project Veritas came under scrutiny in 2017 after Project Veritas had one of its operatives contact The Washington Post , falsely claiming to have been impregnated by Roy Moore while she was a teenager. [47]
In 2018, the organization funded more than 99% of the Judicial Education Project, a legal alias for Honest Elections Project and The 85 Fund. [9] [48] [49]
The board of directors of DonorsTrust includes: [3]
The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, commonly known as the Bradley Foundation, is an American charitable foundation based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that primarily supports conservative causes.
The Koch family foundations are a group of charitable foundations in the United States associated with the family of Fred C. Koch. The most prominent of these are the Charles Koch Foundation and the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation, created by Charles Koch and David Koch, two sons of Fred C. Koch who own the majority of Koch Industries, an oil, gas, paper, and chemical conglomerate which is the US's second-largest privately held company. Charles' and David's foundations have provided millions of dollars to a variety of organizations, including libertarian and conservative think tanks. Areas of funding include think tanks, political advocacy, climate change denial, higher education scholarships, cancer research, arts, and science.
Tides Foundation is a left-leaning donor advised fund based in the United States that manages over $1.4 billion in assets. It was founded in San Francisco in 1976 by Drummond Pike. Tides distributes money from anonymous donors to other organizations, which are often politically progressive. An affiliated group, Tides Advocacy, is a "massive progressive incubator." Tides has received substantial funding from George Soros.
The Fraser Institute is a libertarian-conservative Canadian public policy think tank and registered charity. It is headquartered in Vancouver, with additional offices in Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal. It has links to think tanks worldwide through the Economic Freedom Network and is a member of the free-market Atlas Network.
The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) is a US-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1985 that advocates for free-market solutions to environmental issues. According to its mission statement, CFACT also seeks to protect private property rights, promote economic policies that reduce pollution and protect wildlife, and provide an "alternative voice on issues of environment and development".
Capital Research Center (CRC) is an American conservative 501(c)(3) non-profit organization located in Washington, D.C. Its stated purpose is "to study non-profit organizations, with a special focus on reviving the American traditions of charity, philanthropy, and voluntarism." According to The Washington Post, it also discourages donations by corporations and non-profits supporting what it sees as liberal or anti-business policies. It monitors the giving of major liberal donors in the U.S.
In the United States, a donor-advised fund is a charitable giving vehicle administered by a public charity created to manage charitable donations on behalf of organizations, families, or individuals. To participate in a donor-advised fund, a donating individual or organization opens an account in the fund and deposits cash, securities, or other financial instruments. They surrender ownership of anything they put in the fund but retain advisory privileges over how their account is invested, and how it distributes money to charities.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) is an American conservative think tank based in Austin, Texas. The organization was co-founded in 1989 by James R. Leininger and Fritz S. Steiger, who sought intellectual support for his education reform ideas, including public school vouchers. Projects of the organization include Right on Crime, which is focused on criminal justice reform, and Fueling Freedom, which seeks to "explain the forgotten moral case for fossil fuels" by rejecting the scientific consensus on climate change.
Americans for Prosperity (AFP), founded in 2004, is a libertarian conservative political advocacy group in the United States affiliated with brothers Charles Koch and the late David Koch. As the Koch family's primary political advocacy group, it has been viewed as one of the most influential American conservative organizations.
The Franklin News Foundation, previously the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, is an American online nonprofit news organization that publishes news and commentary from a conservative and free market, limited government perspective on state and local politics. Its journalism platform is called The Center Square, rebranded from Watchdog.org. Founded in 2009 in North Dakota, the organization moved to Virginia and is now based in Chicago.
The Koch family is an American family engaged in business, best known for their political activities and their control of Koch Industries, the 2nd largest privately owned company in the United States. The family business was started by Fred C. Koch, who developed a new cracking method for the refinement of heavy crude oil into gasoline. Fred's four sons litigated against each other over their interests in the business during the 1980s and 1990s.
The State Policy Network (SPN) is a nonprofit organization that serves as a network for conservative and libertarian think tanks focusing on state-level policy in the United States. The network serves as a public policy clearinghouse and advises its member think tanks on fundraising, running a nonprofit, and communicating ideas. Founded in 1992, it is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, with member groups located in all fifty states.
Charles G. and David H. Koch (1940–2019), sometimes referred to as the Koch brothers, have become famous for their financial and political influence in United States politics with a libertarian, more specifically, right-libertarian or American-style libertarian political stance. From around 2004 to 2019, with "foresight and perseverance", the brothers organized like-minded wealthy libertarian-oriented conservatives, spent hundreds of millions of dollars of their own money to build an "integrated" and "stealth" network of think tanks, foundations, "grassroots" movements, academic programs, advocacy and legal groups to "destroy the prevalent statist paradigm" and reshape public opinion to favor minimal government. As of mid 2018, the media has been encouraged to refer to the "Koch network" rather than the "Koch brothers".
Charles de Ganahl Koch is an American billionaire businessman. As of February 2024, he was ranked as the 23rd richest man in the world on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with an estimated net worth of $64.9 billion. Koch has been co-owner, chairman, and chief executive officer of Koch Industries since 1967, while his late brother David Koch served as executive vice president. Charles and David each owned 42% of the conglomerate. The brothers inherited the business from their father, Fred C. Koch, then expanded the business. Koch Industries is the largest privately held company by revenue in the United States, according to Forbes.
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a progressive nonprofit watchdog and advocacy organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. CMD publishes ExposedbyCMD.org, SourceWatch.org, and ALECexposed.org.
In politics, particularly the politics of the United States, dark money refers to spending to influence elections, public policy, and political discourse, where the source of the money is not disclosed to the public.
The Searle Freedom Trust is a 501(c)(3) grant-making foundation located in the United States. It was established by business executive Daniel C. Searle in 1998. As of 2017, the trust had an endowment of $141 million.
Robert J. Brulle is an American environmental sociologist and professor of sociology and environmental science at Drexel University. He is also an associate professor of public health at the Drexel University School of Public Health. He advocates aggressive political action to address global warming.
The Mercer Family Foundation is a private grant-making foundation in the United States. As of 2013, it had $37 million in assets. The foundation is run by Rebekah Mercer, the daughter of computer scientist and hedge fund manager Robert Mercer.
Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), formerly the Free Market American Educational Foundation, Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust and Working for Rights to Express & Communication, is a Washington,DC–based conservative nonprofit organization specializing in advocacy regarding legal and ethical issues related to politics. Until 2017, it was run by the former Acting United States Attorney General Matthew Whitaker.
A substantial portion of the financing comes from Donors Trust, a nonprofit often referred to as the "dark money ATM" of the conservative movement. The organization helps wealthy patrons invest in causes they care about while sheltering their identities from the public.
In 2011, fully 95 percent of the Franklin Center's revenues came from a charity called Donors Trust, whose top contributors were the Koch brothers.
In 2019, the Donors Trust, sent donations to groups such as Turning Point USA, which is led by vocal Trump supporter Charlie Kirk; and the VDARE Foundation, which the Southern Poverty Law Center labeled a hate group.